Classic and Contemporary: The Work of Eric Cohler

Long a favorite designer of Traditional Home readers, Eric Cohler is known for a highly intuitive approach that is both cerebral and sensuous. His mix of classical and contemporary styles—enhanced by jolts of unexpected color and pattern—results in interiors that are elegant, warmly welcoming and the epitome of comfort. Apparent in Cohler’s work is a keen sense of history; he holds a Masters Degree in Historic Preservation from the Columbia University School of Architecture and a certificate in design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Evidence of his versatile, 360-degree approach to creating beautiful spaces include his lighting designs for Visual Comfort and his fabric collection for Lee Jofa. His work has appeared in our pages many times, always to the delight of our readers.

For a Holiday House Showhouse in New York, Cohler—working with his sister, Jennifer Mason—created this glamorous dining room with Mother’s Day in mind. Sleek, high-gloss indigo paint provides a dramatic backdrop to timeless architecture, emphasizing the room’s paneling and moldings.

A chaise longue beckons by a bank of windows. Note the way the colors of the rug are picked up by the pillows and draperies. The flowers and bird allude to the natural world, always an important element of a Cohler design. This is in the New York City apartment Eric designed for his mother (pictured here), Jane Supino, an avid collector of folk art.

This is the living room of a Manhattan apartment that Cohler designed for his neighbor, Rosanna Scotto, an anchorwoman for Fox News. The oversized houndstooth pattern on the chair glimpsed in the foreground, “Heavenly Hound,” is from Cohler’s own fabric collection for Lee Jofa. Every room needs something to make you smile, and the exaggerated shape of the club chair does just that.

To celebrate Traditional Home’s 100th issue, Eric Cohler was commissioned to design a loft in a renovated commercial building. We love the sleek, updated James Bond look he gave the space; it has a formality that works well with the living area. The Japanese lantern-style light fixture is an unexpected touch that keeps things from feeling too somber, enhanced by the white tulips. See the next image for the dining area.

Wouldn’t this be a great place to sip a martini? The dark mahogany-stained dining chairs over the blue patterned rug provide a stylish transition from the dark finish of the kitchen to the lighter tones of the living room. The marble tabletop and the Greek key pattern of the rug allude to classicism. See the next image for the living area.

In the living area, the scale of the rug’s pattern complements the shape of the original brick on the walls. The airy glass coffee table gives the small room a larger appearance, while the floral pattern on the easy chair confers a hint of old-fashioned gentility that warms the space.

In contrast with the mod look in the previous few slides, Cohler gave a much warmer vibek to the urban apartment of his mother, Jane Supino, whose folk art finds adorn her home. New Mexican santos on the mantel create a focal point with a pair of circa-800 Anasazi pots and a 1934 Karl Knath Abstract Expressionism canvas.
Cohler’s inventive recycling provided continuity from Jane's previous homes. Curtains in different colorways from different windows in her last place were taken apart and re-sewn together to drape the current apartment's extra-wide living room window.

In the dining room, a rare mid-1700s Swedish clock, another one of Jane’s fabulous finds, anchors the corner. Years after purchasing the clock as a newlywed, Jane learned that her clock was a rare Swedish Mora, with a twin in Stockholm’s Royal Palace!

It’s little wonder that Stephen Elrod enlisted Eric Cohler to help design his Manhattan duplex, meant to be a test ground for Lee Jofa’s fabrics and rugs; Elrod is vice-president and creative director of the fabric house, and Cohler has created a line of fabrics for Lee Jofa. Here pillow fabrics bring graphic interest to the library sofa’s blue-gray wool-blend tweed. The same fabric in a different colorway cushions a pair of 1960s Swedish Neoclassical chairs.

An orange swivel chair rolls up to the built-in desk and livens up the study in the Ocean’s 3 Showhouse designed by Cohler. To the right of the desk, a wall-mounted TV hangs above a leather-wrapped server. Cohler wanted to stay away from a trite beachy look in this Hamptons showhouse, instead endeavoring for a Eurocentric theme with a carefully curated collection of fine art and a library rather than a media room to give the design more depth than might be expected from a typical American beach house.

“I wanted the bedrooms to feel urbane and elegant, even though they are in a beach house,” explains Cohler. The sophisticated master bedroom is true to his vision of a space that defies being typecast due to its setting. The secretary to the left of the bed creates a stately presence.

“The reason I used grids and mixed them with the plain glass was that I wanted to have a dissolve, not only between the interior and the exterior, but also between traditional and contemporary architecture,” Cohler said of his renovated contemporary home in Connecticut.

The master bedroom is intentionally sparse, allowing the poster bed to float in the middle. The only other furnishings are an antique English table, a Sheraton tray table, and an antique hall chair. The vase of blowsy peonies softens the look.

The living room in Lou and Blair Rosenfeld’s renovated Manhattan apartment is proof that a formal setting need not be straitlaced or overly serious. Here, all it took was a lighthearted painting of dancers onstage to put the room at ease.

The dining room beckons with its elegant domed ceiling, a stunning 1920s Murano glass chandelier, upholstered walls, and an interplay of traditional and contemporary artwork. The fabric on the seats — silk shot through with twine — tempers the formality of the Biedermeier chairs.

The master suite is a sanctuary where the bed is dressed in body-pampering linens. The luxurious bed is embraced by mahogany screens fitted with antique mirrors, and the wall behind the headboard is upholstered in channeled silk to muffle noise from the street below.

When developing a collection of fabrics, Lee Jofa recently opted to go to the archives rather than the drawing board. The result was the aptly named Heritage Collection. Cohler was asked to reimagine one of the company’s classic fabrics and bring it to life in a room-like setting. Drawn to the design by its "painterly quality," he chose to reinterpret a fabric called "Treyes Handblock." Feeling that it would be "beautifully presented" on glazed cotton, Cohler brought it back to life as a true English country house chintz.